This is probably because I'm a beginner at this, but I don't understand why I'd pick an Assassin over the other classes.

Poison: nice idea but doesn't seem to give a huge advantage in practice against monsters high enough in level to be worthy prey. It's not like the Assassin gets super-fast healing from exploration. I suppose if APHEELSIK literally halted regeneration, then when paired with CYDSTEPP or BURNDAYRAZ it would lead to cheese.

First Strike if you explore around: very handy, but just feels like playing a less extreme version of the Rogue.

Swift Hands: Great, now I can butcher everything below me in level for no HP/mana/bad status... except I can do that to a large extent anyway with melee-oriented characters (or at least well enough that the few monsters who can't be slaughtered don't really bother me). Bosses are usually level 10 anyway. I suppose it is interesting though if you make your Assassin magic-focused to the point of gimping his melee damage, or if Dracul can somehow turn your level up to 11 Maybe there are also special dungeons with dangerous low-level monsters that I haven't got to yet.

Incompetent wrote:This is probably because I'm a beginner at this, but I don't understand why I'd pick an Assassin over the other classes.

Well, if anything, an Assassin is probably still better than a Fighter.

Other than that, you're correct. As of now, there's no good reason to pick the Assassin.

Poison: nice idea but doesn't seem to give a huge advantage in practice against monsters high enough in level to be worthy prey. It's not like the Assassin gets super-fast healing from exploration. I suppose if APHEELSIK literally halted regeneration, then when paired with CYDSTEPP or BURNDAYRAZ it would lead to cheese.

That's exactly how Poison worked in the past! And indeed, it made the Assassin a strong class.

Then it got overnerfed so we'll have to wait until it gets balanced properly.

Pretty much what TigerKnee said. Poison used to completely stop all regeneration, but APHEELSIK and the Venom Sword both got nerfed (mainly because of the Venom Sword). APHEELSIK also got reduced from 8 to 5 mana, but still it's practically useless. I personally think that either APHEELSIK shouldn't have been nerfed, or have a special exception for the Assassin to stop all regeneration, similar to the Warlord and CYDSTEPP.

The problem was that classes like the Paladin, Monk, and Berserker were abusing venom sword. These classes have superb regen games and with the ability to halt regeneration just with their base attack they were totally broken on any dungeon without nasty status ailments or a heavy undead component. The APHEELSIK glyph by comparison was fairly tame, and when the nerf came down on the venom sword it was overnerfed (venom sword, IMO, got overnerfed as well. This is an item most useful for low-level characters that now requires you to be a high level to get a good effect... that's a problem). Classes with bad regen games, which unfortunately include the assassin, now convert APHEELSIK on sight. It got a mana cost decrease, but the fact remains that this is a glyph that works best for high-level characters and is a waste of inventory space for low-level characters.

If the assassin could leave the glyph lying on the floor, like in the alpha, then I might leave it around for later. However, squatting on an inventory slot (especially when you're packing a lot of preparations to begin with) is a pretty big tax so when I play assassin I usually just convert the thing.

Incompetent wrote:This is probably because I'm a beginner at this, but I don't understand why I'd pick an Assassin over the other classes.

Well, if anything, an Assassin is probably still better than a Fighter.

True - the only solid trait the Fighter has is the XP bonus, which is good for beginner players especially (maybe not so much once you're smart/well-equipped enough to go giant-slaying from the outset). One free death shield isn't very impressive compared to CYDSTEPP, and Instincts is completely useless - monsters the same level as the character make for unrewarding opponents. If Instincts told me where all the monsters were and their exact levels, THEN I'd appreciate it

Then again it's difficult to make the Fighter good, because he's supposed to be the boring 'vanilla' class to ease players into the game. As a T3 class, the Assassin ought to be more impressive in the hands of a competent player.

Are you guys literally only ever trying to poison high level enemies or something? I continuously use poison to fight monsters 2-3 levels above whatever level I happen to be...

Depends on your class and level. At level 1, the assassin can't even out-regen a poisoned level 2, so APHEELSIK is totally worthless for him off the bat. You need to put on at least a few levels before it starts to take off. By that point, the sweet-spot for poison antics has already passed and the thing has been hogging valuable inventory space that could have been used on more useful glyphs.

I find the extra staying power of HALPMEH almost always gives you more benefit than APHEELSIK. This lets you funnel your MP regen into HP regen, which will usually beat out poison in terms of giving you the leg-up in regen battles. Having to divert a portion of your mana regen to maintain your poison greatly increases your tile consumption and reduces the effectiveness of your regen game over a naive HALPMEH beat-down.

dislekcia wrote:Are you guys literally only ever trying to poison high level enemies or something? I continuously use poison to fight monsters 2-3 levels above whatever level I happen to be...

It's just that the opening game for assassin used to be hilariously good, like lvl. 1 kill a lvl. 2 -> lvl. 2 kill a lvl. 4 -> lvl. 3 kill a lvl. 6 (or 7 if you find the right one).Plus, the better your' opening game is the better the chance you have for a swifthand double steamroll.

As Darvin said, it doesn't really seem worth it to hold on to apheelsik if I have to spend an inventory slot and a full conversion to hold onto it and I can't really use it for the first 3 levels.